The only problem is tat Welven Da Great is mentally challenged. And then, I cared for the popularity of the phrases even less than before.

You know, there was a day when mentally challenged/disabled people were actually those that we just didn’t try to laugh at. I know that plenty of us did behind closed doors. However, many of us steered clear of using their affliction as comedic fodder. In fact, we were told NOT to laugh at them regardless of how funny they may have been. In my day, you had to have respect for people’s conditions.

In the day of microwaveable fame, Instagram success, and Youtube yuppies, certain considerations go out the window.

Welven Da Great and Internet Fame

Nowadays, anybody can become “internet famous”. It seems that many of us are now being entertained by those that can’t help themselves. From Welven Da Great’s inclusion of the tried-and-true “deez nuts” response to Atown’s little man follies, the World Wide Web seems to be tickled. Even The Real Wings has gotten his fair share of love through Youtube and Instagram. If there is proof that 15 minutes of fame can happen to anyone, then these three are sheer proof.

However, I think I may be bothered by this situation. Is it me or is the new hustle dependent upon the ability to pimp someone’s mentally retarded cousin?

Welven Da Great and the Big Issue

Don’t get me wrong on this one: I do respect the hustle. I like that Welven is taking his disability and turning it into a positive. I also like the fact that Atown and The Real Wings are getting money. It is something to transform your life from the “easily avoided” to being part of the “wanted”. Thus, this is not a knock against anyone’s hustle.

Still, I would be remise if I didn’t point out the elephant in the room always eating the boiled peanuts which is reality. On some level, we have to realize that a lot of these situations are exploitive. It is time to be honest: are we laughing with these guys or are we laughing AT them? All money and success aside, are we expecting more people to find their mentally retarded family to pimp them out on social media. I would hope the sum of their lives would account to more than Facebook likes, retweets, favorites, and double taps for hearts.

Welven Da Great and Being Hustled

The saddest part is that these young, disabled men will ride this fame out until it flames out. And why shouldn’t they? For all intents and purposes, they should be getting it while the getting is good. So, you know they will host as many parties, events, and do enough interviews to (at least) stretch out that fifteen minutes of fame a few seconds here or there.

Yet, there are those that are taking advantage of these people with haste. Personally, I never saw the amusement of listening to a mentally challenged young that that reminds me of Sid from Ice Age. Nor do I find it funny to see mentally challenged people used for pranks and gags. Once the fame is gone, are people really going to care? Are these men really going to hold onto a shred of the fame and attention they have attained?

Welven Da Great Epilogue

To be frank, fame is fleeting. I wish no ill will on any of these young men. However, a lot of their situations reek of exploitive measures to cash in with the quickness. All the fame in the world can’t ever make me feel completely assured about these situations. In the end,America is the land of the hustle; even if by “hustle” we mean “put a donut in my retarded friend’s face”.

Like most people I saw the Antoine Dodson video a few months back. The one where he basically goes off about the home invader who tried to rape his kinswoman while she slept and was chased off. I too laughed at his interview, but more in a “This is really uncomfortable to watch” kind of way, as opposed to being truly amused. I mean, there’s nothing really amusing about this woman almost being raped. There’s nothing really funny about his painful interview either. It’s nervous laugh inducing to me.

And here we are several months later, and Antoine Dodson is still hanging around these pop culture internet streets. He’s even sponsoring a sex offender app and reaped the profits from The Bed Intruder Song (click here to listen) that garnered millions of views. He even got a milkshake at Millions of Milkshakes, and made it to the BET awards.

I get him hustling for money to get out of the projects. I appreciate that, but I can’t help but feel there’s something a little dirty about this; something wrong. You know the awkwardness of having a one-night stand, and them hanging around? You were hoping they would kind of take their leave, but they’re still hanging around… This is what I get from Antoine Dodson and his dalliance with pop culture. They love him now–for reasons I’ll get into later–but eventually he will be dropped like a bag of hot rocks and I find that unfortunate, considering what made him popular in the first place.

I’m going to keep it real here. American society loves black folks who act a damned fool or present themselves as a caricature. While black people consume it and enjoy it, white folks–and I mean the kind that hold on to stereotypes as beloved representations of a culture they don’t really understand or know–suck it right up, and it seems he’s been most popular with them. I mean, it’s like the lovable Mammy or Uncle Remus of old.

I’m not calling racism here. However, we all know that had Antoine given an interview where he was extremely articulate, and less likely to drop one liners and punchlines, we would not even be talking about him. Hell, most of us may not have ever known he existed. But like something out of an In Living Color skit, the more stereotypical the minority acts in the interview, the more potential for popularity it has. And Antoine is conveying full on stereotype right here with his sassy Sapphire-like mannerisms and way of speaking.

Ultimately, I wish Antoine much success, and I hope this opportunity works out well for him and his family. At the end of the day, however, this was about an attempted rape of a black woman, a fact that apparently was lost because people are more concerned with the latest stereotype and pop culture meme as opposed to being concerned with the well-being of a woman–a black woman at that–who was almost violated.

I’m half expecting for the actual intruder to come out publicly so that he can get his cut… Stranger things have happened.

I don’t want to get into too many tawdry details, because they are so many when it comes to Kat Stacks that it’s hard to keep up. If you don’t know who she is, I consider you blessed because it probably means you haven’t been caught up in the wasteland that glorified and dehumanized this girl all for some piddly little internet celebrity. For those of us who have visited black celebrity blogs to pass the time, then I am sure you know who this gal is.

Quite frankly, the fact that she mentioned that she slept with Lil’ Wayne got her some notoriety on the white blog circuit for a minute, but when she went to slightly less relevant rap cats, it was a wrap. White folks know a Drake, Jay-Z, and Lil’ Wayne. They don’t know–and I’m sure most of us discerning black folk don’t either–what or who a Lil’ Twist is or even what a Young Money is save for its two highly irritating “stars” Nicki Minaj and Drake.

Kat Stacks first got what seemed like everyone’s attention when she released videos to the coonery propaganda machine that is WorldStarHipHop.com. She even set up a website and twitter (none of which I will link here because it’s just not what she needs right now) to further her “groupie” career. She regaled us with tales of tawdry sex–hell, even prostitution–with rappers, both relevant and hopelessly irrelevant. She wasn’t kind about it either. She was very biting and naturally, that wouldn’t fly with these damned near feral commercial rap cats. Some guys kept it classy–I guess–and others took it further.

Right before Memorial Day weekend, she was attacked at a club by two to three black men, one of them affiliated with rappers Bow Wow and Fabolous. She was beaten and then grabbed like she were a common whore who offended her pimp or her john, and told to apologize to the camera. It was hard to watch and I got angry. I was angry at her but I was livid at these cowards who would attack a woman.

As you can see, nothing has changed. Many Twitter beefs later, she found herself once again at the end of a jumping and beatdown/attack, this time by goonettes who told her to say that she lied. Several black blogs ran with it, and while I can’t be too harsh (they’re just trying to make a buck), I am tired of seeing it. This is, simply put, wrong; this is immoral in the level of lechery it’s reached.

One person commented, “Why are there always cameras present?” I have to ask myself if this person has forgotten that they are living in the 21st century. Cell phones, most of them armed with cameras, are everywhere. Couple that with people who are thirsty enough to want a filthy 15 minutes of fame on sites like WorldStarHipHop.com and other black blogs, instantly you have televised beatdowns of a helpless woman who is by herself.

I don’t care if this is real or not. I don’t care if it’s staged or not. Both are problematic. Both are disgusting. Both show a side of our youth and ourselves–particularly our community at least from cyberspace–that is ugly and vile and obsessed with schadenfreude. Some of us are so dark in our hearts from years of abuse, mental and/or physical, that we say that we don’t care because she’s a “whore” and a “slut” and she put herself in those situations.

If this is real, we are seeing someone who is obviously on some substance (and she has admitted that she has a criminal record–proof was online–and that she has mental issues as well) or in a very dark, horrible place. If this is an act, then she’s the only one laughing, and so are her lackeys, because she has managed to elicit hate from the young black collective or misguided appreciation for her antics.

I’m not saying that Kat needs to be praised for being irresponsible, indiscreet and possibly an unfit mother. Promiscuity for the fuck of it is not something to be praised or admired. It’s fucking with no discernment. But I don’t think that our disdain for her lifestyle, real or fake, should ever warrant a chorus welcoming and praising her dismantling on camera.

So this is my appeal to the black blog heavyweights out there. Please do not engage. PLEASE leave Kat Stacks alone. When a video pops up on Twitvid or WSHH or Youtube or wherever, leave it alone. Don’t even open it, and if you do, please don’t post it. Let her disappear because as long as you keep broadcasting, people will keep watching, and Kat will be beaten, attacked and possibly seriously injured, if not killed.

If this is fake, really leave it alone. Is this the kind of production we need to be supporting? We can’t even get good, in-depth movies or television shows about black people save a handful, and then we complain, but yet still Kat Stacks gets thousands upon thousands of views, and no one asks to boycott her?

Is it worth making a buck off of someone’s problems? Remember, Kat Stacks is a pseudonym for a woman that is a mother. She is troubled. She is not right within, fake or not faked. Would you have liked to be filmed at the lowest point in your life? Would you have liked to be exposed to all so your faults, and we all have them, could be critiqued by people who don’t know you?

Yes, she is putting out videos. Yes, she is talking shit. And? How does the old saying go? “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”  Let her talk to herself so that maybe she can stop to hear herself when you ae no longer listening.  Hopefully then, she will be able to focus on the fact that what she’s really saying in her videos is “I need help.  Validate me because I don’t love myself enough to do so.”

You know what? I don’t get the big deal about this lady. Ok, so I get the point that she looks like the love child of Rodney Dangerfield and the character “Fiona” from the Shrek movies. Yes I get that, but damn, just because she looks the way she does doesn’t mean she can’t sing or do anything else. I get the feeling that from here on out anything she does will leave people in awe. She can fix a ham sammich and probably bring people to tears just because she’s photgenically challenged. I mean what was she supposed to sound like?

I mean seriously, has anyone noticed that most female singers in the industry are low on talent but high on sex appeal? All jokes aside, name one ugly female artist with a record deal. Fuck, Amy Winehouse is a crackhead and weighs probably less than my 1yr old, and she has a recording contract, and hell she’s from England. Are people in awe of her when she sings? I mean nobody has interviewed with her and said, “You know for a crackhead you sure are talented, amazing and inspirational!” Nope nobody ever says that. But I had to wake up in the middle of the night and see another singer from Britain being heralded as such.

Well she’s an inspiration RiPPa.

I’m sorry; a person with one leg competing in the Olympics is inspirational. Who exactly is she inspiring?!! Listen, when you wear an ugly dress, neglect your hair, and refuse to shave your bushy eyebrows and look the way you do, that’s on you. Trust me, there’s nothing inspirational about that. So what’s the big deal already? I mean, if she were an auditioning contestant on American Idol, would she have gotten this much attention? I’d love to hear what you think about that one. Me? I’ll be honest; I doubt they would have even selected her to go to Hollywood. I’ve seen some women who could blow audition but yet they are turned down because of their look.

One thing I know for sure is that Britain may have talent but it sure has ugly, and this woman is just another one in a long line of them. Hello?!! There is Mick Jagger, Ozzy Osborne, Ringo Star, anyone remember these guys? I could go on and on, but I guess not. The messed up thing is that already all this attention has gone to this woman’s head. You know how an ugly muthafucka gets the big head when he/she is in the spotlight, right? Yeah, this Susan chick has turned down an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Yes, that Oprah Winfrey; uh huh, the one who beat Harpo’s ass.

She wanted to do an interview with the new singing sensation on her show but Susan has refused. If she was really trying to make it big, she would have definitely interviewed with Oprah. Instead, she’s been on the talk show circuit and interviewed with Larry “The Crypt Keeper” King on CNN. Oh well, whether she wins the competition or not, the whole world knows about her, and I’m sure she could make a living appearing in Shrek the Broadway version. Who knows, she just may finally be kissed; never mind that it’s by an Ogre.